Enlightenment Orpheus The Power of Music in Other Worlds

The Enlightenment saw a critical engagement with the ancient idea thatmusic carries certain powers - it heals and pacifies, civilizes and educates.Yet this interest in musical utility seems to conflict with larger notions ofaesthetic autonomy that emerged at the same time. In Enlightenment Orpheus,Vanessa Agnew examines this apparent conflict, and provocatively questions thenotion of an aesthetic-philosophical break between the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies. Agnew persuasively connects the English traveler and music scholar CharlesBurney with the ancient myth of Orpheus. She uses Burney as a guide throughwide-ranging discussions of eighteenth-century musical travel, views on music'scurative powers, interest in non-European music, and concerns about culturalidentity. Arguing that what people said about music was central to some of thegreat Enlightenment debates surrounding such issues as human agency, culturaldifference, and national identity, Agnew adds a new dimension to postcolonialstudies, which has typically emphasized the literary and visual at the expenseof the aural. She also demonstrates that these discussions must be viewed incontext at the era's broad and well-entrenched transnational network, andemphasizes the importance of travel literature in generating knowledge at thetime. A new and radically interdisciplinary approach to the question of the power ofmusic - its aesthetic and historical interpretations and political uses -Enlightenment Orpheus will appeal to students and scholars in historicalmusicology, ethnomusicology, German studies, eighteenth-century history, andcomparative studies.

Vanessa Agnew studied music in Australia and is an Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Michigan